Darden Drives Trends In Casual Dining, Industry Analysts Say

RESTAURANTS

Casual dining is on the increase, and restaurant companies are beginning to adopt new technologies, according to reports from the National Restaurant Association's recent trade show in Chicago.

Both trends are being driven in part by Darden Restaurants Inc., the Orlando-based casual dining company, industry analysts said.

Mark Kalinowski, restaurant sector analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in New York, spent several days at the industry's largest trade show and came away with a number of observations.

The main theme of the show, he said in a report, "was definitely the advent of new technologies," including the Internet. "Although the industry should continue to lag other industries in the adoption of technology in certain areas, the pace of adoption within the industry itself may have quickened a bit," Kalinowsi said.

Here are a few of the key points in his report for investor clients:

Darden seems to be making several efforts to take advantage of new or enhanced technologies, including establishing a "corporate intranet," supply chain management initiatives and the implementation of quicker credit-card approval systems.

Darden indicates that it is in the pilot stage with an employee intranet that will be accessible both from the restaurant and the employee's home, Kalinowski said. This way, the employee can access his or her work schedule, or benefits, from outside the restaurant. The company says that many of its new employees are already "Web-proficient."

Similar intranet initiatives are under way at other restaurant companies, including casual dining's Red Robin and quick-service chicken player Chick-fil-A.

Kalinowski said Darden also indicated that it had used a "paperless recipe system" called My Simon in the first Smokey Bones Barbecue unit it built in east Orlando. The recipes are stored in the computer intranet system, available to employees internally and ensuring that any changes or updates to recipes are the latest and available at all times.

"The company seems to have liked this, as cooks were more apt to check the recipes being used more often, rather than creating dishes from memory," Kalinowski said.

Darden indicated that it would begin piloting the paperless recipe system in both its Red Lobster and Olive Garden concepts.

"In our view, if chefs and cooks there access the recipe more often, it could lead to greater consistency in food offerings," Kalinowski said in the report.

Another use of intranets, Kalinowski said, would be quicker financial reporting. Chick-fil-A told him that it aims to have its profit and loss statements fully completed two days after the end of every month.

Darden is working toward giving its general mangers access to financial information in real time "rather than at the end of the month."

Full-service barbecue

The Black Max Barbecue restaurant, which had a pretty good following in the Pine Hills area for many years despite being take-out only, has recently moved to larger quarters that finally allow it to serve sit-down patrons. The 48-seat restaurant is at the corner of Forest City Road and Edgewater Drive. "It's a better location, but we're still struggling," said co-owner Gary Coachman. The former outlet on Pine Hills Road was strictly carry-out for eight years. Hubert Williams is Coachman's partner in the restaurant.

Hurricane preparations

A coalition of members of the Florida Restaurant Association is preparing for hurricane season, which begins Thursday. But this group is not getting ready to board up or prepare evacuation plans. The 24 restaurants in the newly formed Hurricane Relief Food Coalition have agreed to donate food to emergency workers in their area if a storm should affect the area and trigger responses by the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. Most of the restaurants are in coastal areas, but those in Central Florida include the Colonial Room Restaurant in Sanford, Pondo's Restaurant in DeLand, Sleuths Mystery Dinner Shows in Orlando and Bob Evans Farms Restaurants in Orlando and Daytona Beach.

Association taps local exec

During the National Restaurant Association's annual meeting, nine new directors were appointed for three-year terms. Among those appointed to the volunteer posts: Richard Rivera, president of Red Lobster Restaurants in Orlando.